


Five Wounds

by TruantPony



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Character Development, F/M, Kissing, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-09-05 20:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16817485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruantPony/pseuds/TruantPony
Summary: The four times that Nil kisses Aloy, and the one time she kisses him.





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's multi-chap this cliche of a fic.

Nil barely had time to enjoy the art they created together before new settlers began trickling in to the camp that the bandit scum once called home. They had the frightened look of rabbits poking their heads out of burrows once the shadow of a hawk had passed overhead and it would have been amusing if they hadn’t immediately begun discarding all their work, scrubbing clean the splashes of blood until the lean-to shacks were clean again. Well, as clean as they were going to get, anyway.

Nil hadn’t intended to stick around, but he had nowhere pressing to be. His new fiery-haired partner was here too, so he thought to get to know her better. She seemed a lot more capable than his last. He respected that.

He watched her watch the settlers as though she were a scholar and snickered at her unabashed curiosity at a man and woman embracing in a passionate kiss.

She whirled on him, eyes flashing irritation, face already set into a scowl.

He pushed off against the wall where he’d been lounging in the shadows. “The look on your face…” He couldn’t help but tease her. She was much too serious. His mouth slanted into a dry half-smile. “Don’t the Nora kiss? Or is it against your custom?”

She threw him a dirty look but didn’t immediately reply, instead she made a show of checking her bow before placing it back on her back. When she looked back up, her cheeks had lost that sun-burnt tinge. “I wouldn’t know,” she said.

Nil tilted his head and considered her carefully neutral expression, wanting to know more about her, this Nora girl who made his own kills seem clumsy and artless by comparison.

“Wouldn’t know?” he repeated, lifting a brow and silently asking her to elaborate.

She shrugged. “I grew up as an outcast of my tribe. I didn’t spend much time in villages, so I really don’t know.”

Her eyes took on a faraway expression as her fingers folded over a talisman around her neck. Nil’s eyes traced the thin white thread of scar tissue there. Her life story engraved upon on her skin.

“I think,” she said, “the Nora aren’t physically demonstrative. As a general rule. What about the Carja?”

He tilted his chin towards the embracing couple. “We’re passionate people.” A mischievous thought formed in his head. “Would you like to try it?”

“With…you?” Her eyes darted to the couple and then back to him. The expression on her face made it clear she thought the act was revolting, but underneath, he could read her curiosity, clear as day and Nil nearly laughed at her outright. He wouldn’t have guessed at her innocence in this respect, this machine sorceress and bandit-killer.

“There are many types of kisses. I could show you the Carja way, of course, unless…” He let the insinuation hang and he was not disappointed. He did not underestimate her.

She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye, unflinching and fearless. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

He stepped closer to her, into her space and she tensed. “Relax,” he said leaning down to whisper in her ear. “It’s not a battle. I won’t bite,” he grinned and added, “unless you ask me to…”

She clenched her jaw, a muscle ticked. “Just get on with it,” she grit out.

The good humor he had been feeling slowly bled out of him and he took a long look at her. Her face was tight and impassive. Nil studied her wary expression.

“I’ve never touched a woman who wasn’t willing,” he said softly. In times of war, he had done some truly heinous things, but never that. It was a line that he would not cross. And then he took a step back, giving her space to move away.

She took a deep breath and nodded sharply. “I believe you,” she said. “I’m not scared of you.”

Nil knew this already, but still, he raised his brow in silent inquiry.

“I’m not very good with people. This is all new to me,” she explained. “ I’ve never really…well let’s just say I’ve never…and leave it at that.” Then she tilted her chin up as though daring him to mock her.

Nil reigned in his surprise. He knew that she was as green as a new leaf but to think that she had never let down her guard, not even once…well. “You would allow me the first strike?”

She crossed her arms. “I thought you said it wasn’t a battle.”

Nil allowed himself a small playful smile. “Everything is a battle, of one kind or another.”

He reconsidered a new plan of attack, a change in strategy as he ran his finger down the bare bend of her elbow all the way down the palm of her hand. He took her hand and turned it palm up and bent over it, eyes never leaving hers as he brushed first the tip of his nose against the pulse point in her wrist and then his lips.

The manners were still there, even after all these years, the courtly gesture came as automatic as breathing. It was reflex, ingrained in the fiber of his being and woven into the tapestry of who he was, even though he had discarded that part of himself long before he took his new name.

His partner’s hands were rough and dry with all the hallmarks and calluses of an expert bowman. Up close, he could see the tracery of thin blue veins under the translucent skin of her wrist, little rivers carrying her life’s blood. Instead of perfume, she smelled like red flowers, metallic coppery blood, and the volatile scent of machine oil, like death and danger a scent that is very much her. He pressed his mouth over the tendons of her wrist, one beat, then two, lingering just long enough to impress the shape of his lips onto her skin before pulling off.

A moment later, she gently extricated her hand from his light grasp, rubbing her wrist absently. There was a tiny furrow between her brows.

And because she was the kind of person who liked to live with the same precision in which she shot her arrows, he knew exactly what she was going to say.

“That’s not what I expected.” Her eyes flickered over to couple who moments before had been locked in embrace.

“I did say that there were many types of kisses, each with a different meaning. That one is a kiss shared between lovers,” Nil tilted his chin towards the couple, oblivious to the two hunters observing them and everything else around them except for each other. “You and I, we’re not like that.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Aloy quipped. “So what does it mean?” she asked, tapping the inside of her wrist.

In the Carja court, it had been a near meaningless trifle, a form of greeting between khanes. “It means…I’m glad I met you, and I admire you,” Nil found himself saying. And it was true enough, so he left it at that.

She scoffed, swiping her hair back in irritation. “You admire me? You barely even know me.”

Nil canted his head down and gave her a long piercing look. “I’ve seen you hunt, stalk, and kill. I know what you’re capable of and I have seen the best of you. If there’s anything that I haven’t seen…well, it’s only because you haven’t shown me yourself, what it is you’d like for me to know.”

His eyes dropped to that white line of scar tissue at her throat. He brought up a hand to trace it with his thumb but she caught his wrist before he could touch her. The bite of her fingers at his wrist sent a thrill of anticipation and struck a low heat in his stomach. He grinned, sharp-edged and sly as she released him. He thought her lovely, cunning, and vicious, honed to the sharpness of a knife’s edge. The kind that could gut you, split you open, leave you clutching your entrails before you could even feel the pain of the cut.

Her green gaze took the measure of him, sizing him up the same way she sized up her unwary machine prey, like she already knew the best way to bring him to his knees. “ I’ve done more than kill bandits. Whatever you think you know about me, is only a small part of who I am.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, but I know all I need to know about you.”

Her cool expression gave nothing away. “We’re done here.”

He hummed as he stretched. “This hunt was satisfying. I hope to enjoy another with you.”

She said nothing, but then again, she didn’t have to.

Until next time, went unspoken, hanging in the air like a promise between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write myself out of writer's block if that makes sense. All chapters except 5 are done and only need editing. Let me know if Nil's voice came across reasonably well or not.


	2. Two

“Inspecting your troops, Aloy?”

“Nil,” she sighed before turning. “Lurking in the dark?”

She didn’t even have the decency to jump at the sound of his voice and her eyes found him exactly where he sat, hidden in the shadows with his back to some stones. Then again, Nil thought that not even a stalker could sneak up on her.

He had watched her from a distance these past few days, speaking to soldiers and friends who had gathered from afar to Meridian to answer her call and join her in battle against the Eclipse. So many people knew her by name…it made him wonder if they knew her as he did. He quickly brushed that thought away.

Nil raised his flask in a small salute. “I’m drinking in the dark.”

That brought a raised eyebrow. “By yourself? That seems…healthy.”

Nil tilted his head in invitation. “Join me?”

She shifted and peered at him a little uncertainly, and Nil could tell that she was unsure whether she wanted to continue walking or not. He couldn’t blame her. The last time they had met, he had proposed a duel to the death.

She looked up the path that she was on, and for a moment, Nil felt disappointment, as sharp as a knife in his ribs, then she turned back to him with an unreadable look on her face and stepped off the path that circled around the western ridge.

“The hour is late. You seem restless,” he observed as he took a swig from his flask, not bothering to get up from the spot he had picked out.

“Yeah. It’s too quiet. I don’t trust it, but there’s still no sign of the Eclipse.”

He gave her a knowing look. “You feel it in your bones, don’t you, the approach of war, like distant drums.”

The stones at his back were warm, retaining a remnant of the day’s heat from the sun. She sat down next to him and he offered her his flask.

Aloy took it gingerly and gave it a suspicious scowl. “It’s not scrappersap, is it?”

“Of course not,” Nil said with a laugh. “I only drink Oseram poison when I feel like dying a little.”

She hesitated a moment and gave him a guarded sidelong glance.

“Don’t you trust me?” he drawled, giving her a sly look, full of daring.

Aloy smirked at the unspoken challenge. “Not even a little bit.”

But still, she put the flask to her lips, tilted it back, and took a deep pull. Nil watched fascinated at the play of the muscles and tendons in her slender throat working as she drank. Her hair spilled down her back, like a fountain of blood falling from her head, or maybe a bolt of raw red silk. His fingers itched, and for the first time not for his bow, but to see if her hair was as soft as it looked.

When she was done, she handed the flask back to him and swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s not as strong as I expected.”

“Only a fool would dull the edge of their blade before battle,” Nil answered. He swished his flask around—not much left in it now. He set it aside and leaned back on his hands, tipping his head up toward the stars. “Still, it helps to quiet the ringing in your ears, the itch in your fingertips, makes the wait before bloodshed a little less unbearable.”

The silence between them was deep, but not uncomfortable. Nil wasn’t sure he knew where they stood at this moment, whether they were partners or friends, or maybe just comrades in arms, but he was glad that she never took him up on his offer of a duel to the death. The night was warm, humidity clinging to him like a filmy second skin. Blazebugs flashed and glittered in the night, creating their own constellations against the tall grass. Wordlessly, he watched Aloy from the corner of his eye.

“I can’t sleep,” she confided quietly.

Nil already knew that. He’d seen her pace the perimeter of the western ridge many times over the course of the last few days. The more time had passed, the more restless she had become. “The wait is the hardest part. The passing of time begins to feel like a bowstring pulled taut.”

“How are you so calm?” she asked, an accusing note in her voice. “Do you even realize what is truly at stake here? It’s not just a battle for Meridian, Nil, it’s a battle for the fate of humanity. If the Eclipse wins, we all lose.”

His eyes swept over her face, marking every freckle and line of tension, the dark smudges under her eyes. “Are you afraid?” He could see her internal struggle between pride and honesty.

“Of course I’m afraid!” she burst out. “People are going to die in this battle, people that I know and care about, my friends. There’s an army of resurrected war machines coming for us, the kind that wiped out the Old Ones. Against these odds, we’re outgunned, outclassed...”

Her armored form folded inward just a little and her proud shoulders suddenly dropped as though the invisible weight she had been carrying had suddenly become too heavy to bear. Nil realized that for all her deadly skill, and uncanny ability, she was still so young, with the pressure of the world on her shoulders. He had never once seen her without her armor.

“Good,” Nil said. “Embrace that fear and welcome it like a dear friend and not an enemy to be conquered. Fear tells you where the edge is- the edge of a cliff, the point of an arrow, the edge of a blade.”

He raised his hand to her throat and brushed the thin white scar there with his fingertips. She tensed but didn’t pull away. His eyes flickered up to hers. “If they don’t fear you, then they don’t know you. They don’t know where your edge is.”

She bowed her head for a long moment, staring at nothing but the handle of her spear as though it had all the answers.

When she looked up again, he was relieved to see that the brittleness in her eyes was gone, and that whatever jagged edges in her were smoothed down again. Tenacity, resilience, and determination shone in her gaze. The tightness in his own chest eased.

Aloy took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to fight with everything we’ve got and use every surprise we have up our sleeves. A little luck couldn’t hurt, especially against the odds we’re facing.”

Nil flashed her a sly smirk, tilting his head toward her confidentially. “You know, I’ve been known to win a dice game or two and go on living when by all rights I should have died. Shall I give you some of my luck?”

Her eyebrows rose. “I get the feeling that I’m going to regret it if I say yes…”

“Then don’t say yes…just don’t say no,” he murmured. Nil leaned forward slowly into her space and once again, he felt her tense but she didn’t pull away.

“For luck—may fortune favor the brave,” he whispered into the shell of her ear. Then he bent his head down and brushed a kiss over the crest of her cheek. Her skin was soft under his lips and he inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of her, like the air after a thunderstorm. He lingered just long enough that he felt her shiver, almost imperceptibly.

She turned towards him, slender fingers pressed to her cheekbone as though trying to staunch blood from a wound. “Nil-“

She was interrupted by a sudden clatter of armor and the sound of footsteps coming down the path. The night patrol.

Aloy straightened quickly and shifted away. He felt her absence like a gust of cold wind.

She cleared her throat. “I should go,” she said, “check the rest of the perimeter. Can’t be too prepared.” Nil could see her attention already drifting away like blood in a stream, determined gaze turned toward the pathway again.

Just as he was about to pick up his flask and finish the dregs of the maize beer, she stopped and half-turned her head towards him. Moonlight gilded her profile in silver.

“Hey Nil…” she called.

“Hm?”

Her expression was inscrutable. “Try not to die in battle.”

He gave her a sharp, reckless grin and a salute, soldier to soldier. “If I do, you’ll know that I had the time of my life,” he said as she shook her head at his morbid joke.

He watched her continue on her path, walking tall as though she had steel in her spine, hair a burning beacon in the dark. Nil thought that maybe, just once, he could be a shield instead of a sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally don't post chapters so quickly and am usually slow af, but most of this series is already finished in little scenes here and there.
> 
> I wanted to write Aloy being just a tiny bit vulnerable because we don't really get that much of it in the game, except hints of it here and there. She's normally so composed, I wanted to flip that a little and show her human side. It also made me sad that the night before the final battle, she talks to Rost and Sylens; one of them can't answer and the other won't. She doesn't seem to have anyone to confide her insecurities in, and everyone is looking towards her for leadership and guidance. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed it, please consider feeding my considerable ego with kudos or comments!


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite chapter, by far.

“The Cut?” His very voice conveyed doubt as he searched for his next foothold. “Not exactly known to have bandit clans. If the Banuk don’t finish off the scoundrels first, the weather usually does.”

“I’m telling you, I saw it with my own eyes.” Aloy’s voice came from somewhere below him to the left. “If you don’t believe me, then turn back. I can take care of it myself.”

There was a pause as they both clung to the side of the mountain. A cold fierce gust of wind swept down from the summit and slashed at them, whipping and tearing at their clothes like a snapmaw.

“No one asked you to come anyway,” she muttered.

That much was true. To his delight, they had met once more on the flat Sundom plains as she collected stormbird parts for some new make of weapon. She told him of the fantastic hunts she had in the icy cold of the north. Naturally, he had invited himself along after hearing of her adventures.

“Curiosity chafes like sand under armor. I had to see for myself.”

Aloy’s sigh was nearly lost to the wind. “You and me both.”

He reached the crest first and pulled himself up and over, fingers numb from the cold, arm muscles twinging pleasantly from the exertion of the climb. Even though the weather was atrociously cold, he could feel a light sheen of sweat covering his body under his feather cloak. He leaned over and extended his hand to Aloy who looked as though she didn’t need the help, but took it anyway.

“Have you been to the Cut before?” she asked after she found her feet again.

That was a loaded question, wasn’t it? He watched her pat rock dust and powdery snow from her armor for a moment until she glanced up, an expectant look in her eyes.

“No, not the Cut…though I doubt I’ll be welcome here. In my defense, most Carja soldiers wouldn’t be.” His mouth briefly pulled to the side.

Her expression turned flinty and hard. “You spoke of war crimes in your past. What _exactly_ did you do?”

He stepped towards her and smiled thinly when she held her ground. Nil tilted her chin up with gentle fingers. Despite her harsh exterior, her skin was surprisingly soft under the rough pads of his finger tips.

He leaned forward and dropped his voice low. “It’s not like you…to be so interested in my past.”

His gaze flickered from her mouth, set in a thin line of disapproval to her eyes which scorched him like blaze fire. He felt the tip of her spear dig into his belly, a warning. He released her and held his hands up in a gesture of harmlessness.

“Whatever you did in the past still matters. Don’t pretend like it never happened, like you never did all those things.”

“Are you going to pass judgement on me?” Nil asked. “I gave you a chance to have a duel to the death.” If she had accepted, they would have had a beautiful fight…before she put him in a grave. If it was her, he wouldn’t mind. That’s what heroes did after all.

“Judgement had already been passed on you, you served your time…and I don’t want to kill you.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “Did you want to kill me?” There was a creak as her hands tensed ever so slightly on the leather guard of her spear.

Did he still want a duel with an inevitable conclusion? It would be too fleeting a joy.

“No.” The word slipped out of his lips against his will, surprising them both. “We both know you wouldn’t have let me…and it’s not something I had really wanted, even then.” Truth be told, that would be the real reason that if they ever had a duel, she would probably win. Of the two of them, he was the more reckless, in it for the thrill. Aloy, he knew, despised losing more than he cared about winning.

“Oh.” She looked down, then back up again and blinked in surprise, perhaps just noticing how close they stood. A flush of color suffused her cheekbones as though she had been sun-touched. “What you do in this moment…in every moment matters too. Just like what you did at the battle for Meridian against the Eclipse…that’s something that I won’t forget. I meant what I said. The world still needs someone like you. You have a choice on how to use your strength…to do what’s right.”

Nil’s mind whirled. What did she mean by right? How would he know that he was doing what was right and not wrong? Right and wrong, good and bad…they had always been arbitrary to Nil. As a soldier he never had to think. All he had to do was to follow orders. As a free man, he did whatever he wanted, within the boundaries of the rules, of course. Freedom of choice had never seemed so heavy a burden until this moment, a terrible responsibility. But Aloy always knew what to do. She burned with certainty and purpose. Perhaps all he needed to do was to stand next to her light, for how could he possibly be a shadow standing next to one who shone so brightly?

“Well,” he said after a moment. “Let’s go and be heroes.”

“Yeah.” She smiled at him, the first genuine one he had seen from her. She had always seemed like she was so stern, with a mouth that didn’t know how to smile. How wrong he was.

Nil leaned forward slowly until their armored foreheads touched and bumped his cold nose against hers. He did it slowly to give her a chance to protest or pull away but all he got was a sharp intake of a breath. Her lips were so close, that you could slip a leaf between them and have just enough room. All he had to do was lean forward and…no. Some things really weren’t meant for him to take. He pulled away with some reluctance.

Aloy brought her hand up to her nose, a slight furrow in her brows. “What was that?”

Nil shrugged, nonchalant. “A Banuk kiss. Have you already forgotten our previous lessons?”

The furrow grew even deeper. “Ok. What does it mean?”

He tilted his chin down and leaned forward with a wicked grin. “It means, ‘I’m too cold to kiss you properly in this snow-benighted land’, perhaps we should go somewhere and get warmed up so that I can give you a real lesson?”

Ah, there was that lovely blush again.

She made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat, turned around and began walking off. “I don’t know why I even bother with you sometimes.”

Nil didn’t know either, but he was glad that she did, that she thought there was something of value in him after all.

They never did get warmed up in the Cut. But together they ruined a perfectly good day for a bunch of bandits so Nil counted it as a win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot who said- "psychopaths are born and sociopaths are made", but I thought might perfectly describe Nil. He's a product of his environment, 'born under a long and dark shadow'. Nil (in-game) has some screws loose but he has a sense of honor, something that doesn't fit the model of psychopath. 
> 
> I have a whole headcanon thing where he was conscripted at a young age into the military. Nil was likely given by his noble family to the Carja military at a young and impressionable age, which is why he's such a hot mess. They made him into a child soldier. He knows nothing else except war. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Four

Aloy leaned against him heavily, arm thrown around his shoulder, red hair at his cheek. He only need look down to see the arrow shaft protruding from her thigh. Nil put his arm around her ribs and half-carried, half-dragged her along, leaving behind a trail of blood mingled into their footprints in the shifting sea of sand dunes. The cave in front of them beckoned, promising safety from the rising desert sandstorm. 

The cave was deep, carved into the rock face to about thirty feet or more. All of it was made of rough sandstone, with it’s multi-hued red bands of deep crimson to pale pink, shaped and molded over many years by the hands of wind and the scouring silica sand of the western desert. The earth muffled their footsteps as they shuffled into the dry musty gloom. Nil kept his senses alert as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, but aside from the rustling and light squeaks from family of mice, they were alone. The air smelled stale, like some undisturbed, long-forgotten tomb. In the back, he could see a shallow basin of water collected from the dripping stalactites above.

Carefully, he brought Aloy to a rocky outcropping and helped her to the ground. She hissed in pain, holding her wound as though she could press back the pain and the swell of blood that bloomed from the gash. The blood began to pool sluggishly under her leg, mixing with the sand and creating a sticky mess. Her face was white and strained, lips nearly colorless, sweat beading at her brow. 

Nil crouched next to her, on the balls of his feet, considering the wound. He had seen many such wounds before, and endured several like it, himself. “We’ll need to remove the arrow.”

“Yeah, you think?” Aloy snarled between clenched teeth. Even wounded, she was fierce and Nil half imagined that if he made the wrong move, she might snap at him, tear into him with her teeth.

She had already begun wiggling the shaft in her leg, like a loose tooth. Her jaw was clenched so hard he could hear her back molars grinding together. It had punched through the leather skins of her trousers, where she was least armored and it was hard to tell how deep the shaft went. 

“Stop,” he chided her, placing his hands over hers. “You’re only going to make it worse. Like your words, an arrow’s barbed end is designed to work itself in deep. It won’t come out so easily.”

She ran her hands through her hair, in agitation. Some blood from her hands smeared in a dark red slash across her cheek. “Nil, I have an arrow sticking out of my leg, I really can’t imagine how I’m going to make this worse!”

He could tell by the rising volume and edge in her voice that she was trying valiantly to appear strong when she felt weak. “Let me tend it. Otherwise it will fester.” It was the least he could do, after all. 

Their eyes met and they shared a moment both vulnerable and tense. He wondered what she saw when she held his gaze like that, so direct and fearless, even through the pain. He wondered whether she trusted him. The silence stretched out for so long, he feared that she might refuse him in sheer stubbornness. Then she gave one sharp nod, arms bracing against the ground on either side of her as she leaned back against the cave wall.

“I’m not used to you giving in so easily,” he teased as he looked over her leg. 

“Well, I’m not used to getting shot in the leg with a damn arrow.” 

“A testament to your skill, if this is the most serious wound you’ve ever had.” He pulled a short knife from his sash and used it to lift the torn edges of her leather trousers. It was a mess of blood and sand and would need to be cleaned immediately before infection set in. 

Nil gauged that the arrowhead must have been buried in the thigh muscle two inches in. He ran his hand along the underside of her leg but could feel no exit wound. Unfortunate. Those tended to heal a lot cleaner than the ones you had to dig out. It could have been worse, though. The arrow could have nicked the artery running along her femur. In that case, he would have lost her long before now. He brushed that thought away.

“I’ve had worse,” she said absently as her eyes fluttered closed. “But this is definitely the one in recent memory that hurts the most.”

“What is pain but an indication that you are still alive and that you live to fight another day?” Nil had to keep her talking as he built the fire.

She groaned in response. “If you’re trying to tell me how pain is good for me, I’m going to kick you with my good leg and see how alive you feel.” 

Despite it all, Nil threw his head back and laughed warmly. “I certainly owe you that much, at least. Never let it be said that I don’t pay my debts back.”

“Is that why you’re doing this? Because you think you owe me?” she probed. Her head was leaned back against the wall. Her eyes were barely open, heavy-lidded, he could see just a glint of green underneath her lids, glittering as sharp as desert glass.

Her gaze was dangerously intense and Nil stilled for a moment, unsure of what answer she was seeking. He felt unsteady on the inside. “We’re partners, aren’t we? You’d do the same for me.” 

“It almost was you, dummy.” She said it quietly, so it was absent her usual bite. It alarmed Nil how tired her voice sounded. Her face was ashen, every freckle standing out in sharp relief. How strange that he had never considered how much blood must be kept in one’s veins to stay alive. He had only ever concerned himself with spilling it. 

It didn’t take long for the fire to heat the water he had collected in a metal bowl. He tore a linen cloth into strips and tossed them into the boiling water along with some grey omen mushrooms that grew towards the back of the cave. 

“Are you ready?” he asked, handing her a thick strip of leather. “This is going to hurt,” he warned.

She heaved a sigh, but her expression was resolute. “I can handle it.“ 

“I know you can. But if you cry or pass out, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll take your secret to my grave,” he joked with a small grin. 

She looked down for a moment, a curtain of red closed around her face, shielding her expression from him. When she looked back up, her face was open and earnest. “I trust you not to let me bleed out.”

Nil bent over her leg and carefully cut away her trousers. Then he took some of the cooled water and poured it over the wound, dabbing around it gently with a clean cloth, cleaning it of the sand and the grit, the dirt and blood. The damaged tissue around the arrow shaft was raw and bruised, an angry purplish red. 

He worked in near silence, bent to his task of removing the arrow, as single minded in this as in everything he put his mind to. The only sounds he heard from Aloy were the creak of her teeth tightening upon the leather strap she held between her jaws and her harsh, fast breathing. 

The bloody arrow lay next to him still wet and gleaming, and the ragged edges of skin were just barely made whole again when Aloy spoke. “You’re surprisingly good at this.”

Nil looked up from knotting the last stitch in her leg. “Steady hands,” he said, wriggling his bloodstained fingers. “Most Carja soldiers know how to treat arrow wounds. I’ve had to do it myself a few times, when the blood in my ears pounded so hard during battle that I didn’t know I had been wounded until after. ”

Aloy grimaced. “It hurts more to do it for yourself.”

Nil shrugged, turning his gaze back down to the neat little row of silver wire now holding the edges of her together. “I don’t mind the pain.” He ran his thumb alongside the cleaned and dressed wound, one large hand wrapped around the inside of her bare knee. 

“Why did you do it?” he asked without looking up at her. “This magnificent wound was meant for me.” At the last moment, she had pushed him out of the way.

“We’re partners, aren’t we? You would have done the same for me.” Her lips quirked upward as she threw his own words back at him.

Hadn’t they always been partners? The term didn’t seem precise enough to describe what they were...but he supposed it would have to do for now. “Partners,” he agreed, voice low and rough. “You know that I follow your red war banners, wherever you go.” After all, it was better to fight for something than live for nothing. 

He dipped his head over her upper thigh and gently pressed his lips near the edge of the bandage. He could smell the antiseptic scent of grey omen and wild ember hitting the back of his throat, and underlying that, a faint metallic tang of blood. Underneath his palms, he felt her thighs tense, heard Aloy’s sharp inhale.

“What does it mean?” she asked, true to custom of their game. Though, was it even a game, anymore? Nil had no answer. It no longer seemed like play. If her voice was a little breathless, he made no comment. 

It meant loyalty, gratitude, respect, a dozen different things that yet had no name because they were still tumbling inside him like rough stones getting polished into fine gems. As always, he settled for as honest an answer as he could give. “A desire that you return to full health soon,” he said, leaving his expression open and unarmored.

She looked away from his gaze as though it had scorched her, focusing on the wound instead. “Another scar for my collection.” 

“Wear them with pride,” said Nil. “Each scar is is a story, written into your skin. They are your trophies from battle, a proof of your strength, that you endured and that whatever hurt you, did not break you, you triumphed.”

She pursed her lips, considering him quietly, a strange emotion flashing across her face like a shooting star, gone in an instant. The silence between them stretched out, tight and tense. To his surprise, she leaned forward slowly, cool fingers tracking down his chest until they rested over his ribs. He could feel her fingertips slowly trace the the ridge of scar tissue there. His skin shivered under her touch. 

“What’s the story behind this one?” she asked not meeting his eyes.

He stayed with her in that cave while she healed and they showed each other their scars, the ones that bled and the ones that didn’t. And when it was time for her to go, he continued on with her, following her red war banners, just as he had promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I had a scene where Nil actually removes the arrow but it got cut because it didn't fit in the narrative all that well. In case anyone is ever interested in arrow removal: https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/battle-wounds-never-pull-an-arrow-out-of-a-body/
> 
> I'm well researched af!
> 
> Edit: The quote "It's better to fight for something than live for nothing." is by George S. Patton. I'm sorry I didn't add the credit earlier.


	5. Five

It was well into the night when Aloy picked her way through the camp. She nodded to the night patrol, a mix of tribal affiliations getting along surprisingly well. She often wondered if it would always take a common enemy for all the tribes to put aside their petty difference, and whether it was human nature that people focus more on their differences than similarities. The night was cold and biting, and the stars were nowhere to be seen, covered as they were by the oily smoke clouds that the Oseram and smithies threw into the air.

A whiff of woodsmoke hung in the air, heavy like thick perfume, clinging to the nasal passages, overlaid by that inimitable bitter zing of Oseram metalworker kilns and the yeasty scent of home-brewed scrappersap. Her boots crunched over grass covered in hoarfrost, like she was walking over a field of shattered pottery shards and Aloy rubbed her ungloved hands together, blowing her hot breath over her cupped palms. Her fingers were already beginning to itch from the cold when she reached her destination- an unassuming tent in an unassuming part of the military bivouac that the joint tribes had set up in the north of Mainspring in preparation to attack.

She hesitated a moment and then lifted the tent flap decisively. There was a human shaped bundle of bedding on the far side of the tent, a lot more cramped now that she was in it. Aloy slipped out of her boots silently and dug the tip of her foot into the side of the bundle.

Predictably, Nil flailed out of the sheets, knife already out before he was completely dragged out of sleep. Aloy froze out of habit, knowing that Nil couldn’t be held responsible for his amazing reflexes for countering sudden movements with extremely violent prejudice. Especially when he was half-conscious.

He looked at her blankly for a moment as though he couldn’t really trust his eyes and then groaned, dragging a hand down his sleepy face. “You know, I feel most homicidal at this time of night,” he remarked, voice hoarse and raspy with sleep.

“Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I had any other place to go.” Aloy’s face was a study of mild chagrin.

“What do you mean?” he asked, tugging his bedding up and around his hips as Aloy tried and failed to keep her eyes from following the movement, the way his muscles rippled under his skin and bunched in his arms. He was only slightly less clothed than normal, still, she wasn’t used to seeing so much skin, more than the usual slash of chest and bare lean arms.

“I mean I invited Vanasha to share my tent, since there’s not enough to go around...and then she invited Uthid...and now they’re in there...together.” She had seen their two figures entwined around each other suggestively through her focus, and if that wasn’t enough to traumatize her, there were soft sounds…of them doing things which she could only imagine...or tried not to anyway.

Nil threw his head back and laughed heartily. “Uthid and Vanasha are having sex in your tent. That’s rude!”

“Erk!” Aloy could feel her ears burning. If she never had to hear the words Uthid and sex in the same sentence again, it would be too soon.

“Hmm, who would have thought that old war hawk had it in him,” he mused, scratching the stubble on his chin.

“Can you stop talking now?”

Oblivious to her plight, Nil plowed on. “I hope they clean your bedding, once they’re done.”

Aloy’s face curdled into an expression of disgust. “You know, I don’t even want that bedroll anymore, they can just keep it.” Or burn it. Whatever. All she knew was that she would never be able to sleep in it again.

“And so here you are...” he prompted as though he couldn’t understand why she was in his tent as opposed to anyone else’s.

“I didn’t think anyone would share your tent with you,” Aloy shrugged as she took a seat next to his bedroll which was beginning to look inviting, as tired as she was. “You being you, it was a safe bet…”

His eyes glinted in the near dark, a quicksilver look. “If you want the support of Oseram ealdormen, you definitely shouldn’t be sleeping in my tent.”

That Mainspring hated him was an understatement. Nil’s old name was feared in these parts, dark whispers to scare children into behaving. They knew his face, and maybe knew him in a way that she didn’t. He had only told her the bare bones of what he had done during the Red Raids and even that was enough to make her stomach churn uncomfortably.

Aloy scoffed. “Do I look like I care what a bunch of stuffy old men say about me behind my back or to my face?” While they argued loudly over whether or not to lend their aid, Aloy had quietly won the support of the Oseram freeholds all over the Claim.

“You might not care, but I would, if they slander your honor,” Nil said seriously.

She paused while taking off her armor. All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere warm and get a good night’s sleep but Nil was uncharacteristically hesitant to share his sleeping roll. “Are you bothered? I guess I could look for Erend’s tent, if you are.”

“No,” he responded after a moment of silence. “Don’t bother, I have it on good authority that he snores like a rockbreaker.”

Aloy snorted. That much was true. The Vanguard often made fun of him for it, poor Erend. Then again, the Vanguard made fun of each other a lot, and Aloy couldn’t really tell the fine line between friendly ribbing and brutal mockery when it came to them.

It was strange to slide into the bedroll next to Nil. The bedding smelled like him, familiar and spicy, laced with woodsmoke and cedar. He kept his distance but she couldn’t help but feel his warmth and sighed eyes momentarily closed, savoring the heat.

There was another moment of charged silence, though charged with what, she couldn’t say.

Nil hadn’t moved from his reclining position as he stared down at her. His silver gaze sparked a low heat in her belly, something strange and unfamiliar.

“This is highly inappropriate, my general.” He knew she didn’t like that nickname.

“Why do you call me that?” she asked, turning on her side to face him fully.

“Everyone calls you general Aloy.”

She gave him a look that said, don’t play dumb, I know what you’re doing.

He settled back into his pillows and gave her a look, admiring, appraising. “Command me and find out why I call you my general.”

There was some code there that Aloy couldn’t parse out and her mouth seemed suddenly dry. “You shouldn’t give someone so much power over you.”

He ran his hand through his soot dark hair. “It’s freely given, mine to give as I see fit.”

Aloy made a face and sat up too, though she kept the sleeping furs pulled up to her chin. “If I commanded you to jump off the highest Spearshafts would you?”

He smiled. It wasn’t one of his usual smiles, the ones that were sharp edged with sly cunning. It was surprisingly sweet. He opened his mouth to answer.

“It was a rhetorical question,” Aloy interrupted. “Why haven’t you kissed me again?” She regretted it the moment that question slipped out of her mouth and looked away, feeling the heat of embarrassment rise up in her chest.

His look of surprise melted into something more fervent. “Your arrows passed into me, between the armor. I tried to dig them out but their barbed ends stuck. The more I pulled, the deeper in they went until they just became a part of me. My bow is yours. My sword arm too...as is every other part of me,” he tapped his chest. “Call me to war against machine or man. I’ll fight under your red banners.”

Aloy blinked, feeling like she had been hit in the gut with a watcher’s kick. “I...don’t know what to say.” By now, she knew his nuances, hiding his true meanings in things left unsaid, scattering his hard truths into a bunch of pretty words.

“Say nothing,” he said gently, “but that you accept my unconditional surrender.” He smiled ruefully. “A first. I won’t bother asking for terms; we both know you’ll have none. I only await your command.”

He held still when she leaned towards him, as bold as a flame burning in the dark. Age old instinct told her to slant her lips over his. Nil groaned and pulled her over his lap, the sleeping skins falling down over her shoulders as his hot hands thrust themselves into her hair, the other resting at the flare of her hips. He nibbled on her bottom lip with sharp teeth. Aloy gasped and Nil surged forward, claiming territory and swallowing her sound of surprise, slicking his tongue into her mouth to dance alongside hers.

She pulled her mouth away from his with a gasp, chest heaving for air, fingers going to her swollen lips. Nil pulled back too, eyes hazy with a flare of desire. Aloy felt the strange desire pooling in her belly. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted, just that there was an ache of want within her.

“Was that a Carja kiss?” she asked breathlessly.

Nil smirked and pulled her closer. “Yes, one of them. There are many other types of Carja kisses.” His pupils were blown wide with desire, and his pewter gaze flickered to her lips before going back to her eyes. One of his hands made their way up her tunic, rough fingers skimming the curve of her breast.

Heat threatened to rise up and consume her. Aloy tugged on Nil’s black hair, pulling almost to the point of pain until he groaned, hands tightening on her hips and pulling her against him in a way that made her want to writhe and ride him like a strider mount. “Show me all of them,” she demanded.

“As you command,” he whispered as he pulled her down once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! I completely neglected updating this story and I'm so sorry to anyone who followed it/was waiting for the final chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting, leaving kudos! I hope you all enjoyed this. Aloy's chapter was a bit hard to write so I hope it wasn't as hard to read.


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